MovieChat Forums > Licorice Pizza (2021) Discussion > Hmmm… whether to buy this film 🤔

Hmmm… whether to buy this film 🤔

posted 2 years ago by Drooch (5333)
2 replies | jump to latest

PTA is probably the best ‘young’ director working today (as in younger than the 70’s masters - Scorsese, Spielberg, Coppola etc) but he’s hit and miss for me.

His Daniel Day Lewis collaborations are magnificent. There Will Be Blood and Phantom Thread are in my collection, I like the darkness, depth and detail, and the comedy that comes from these obsessive weirdos DDL is masterfully portraying.

Inherent Vice was very hard work, but it stayed with me afterwards which is a very good sign, I can’t see myself buying it though. The Master was engaging in parts, not in others. Joaquin Pheonix’s scummy characters don’t draw me in particularly.

Liquorice Pizza is a mixed bag. As with all PTA films it’s brilliantly made, but I found it a bit ‘slight’. It’s a young love dramedy and doesn’t cut deep like the DDL films. 70’s Hollywood looked like a great time and place to grow up, but what is clearly deeply nostalgic for PTA has limited appeal to me.

It wasn’t a romance like Before Sunrise/Sunset that completely drew me in, I watched Gary and Alana almost get together from a distance, like a collage of brief memories, each one perfectly captured but it wasn’t a story that gripped me.

I’m really on the fence about this one. It could be a film that slowly seduces me with each viewing, or it could sit on my shelf and collect dust. Maybe I need to wait for it not be ‘new’ anymore and then see if it’s still nagging me…

[–] Harlyville (24) 2 years ago

LP is a movie that definitely requires multiple viewings to fully appreciate it. I had a similar experience with Once Upon… Hollywood. First time I was confused and underwhelmed. But rewatched a few months later and started at really get into it.

With LP, I rented it and rewatched it almost immediately. I then waited until the 4k streaming version was in my price range and pulled the trigger.

[–] Drooch (5333) 2 years ago

See OUATIHollywood did entertain me right off the bat, it had loads of moments I knew I’d want to watch again, like Pacino’s cameo, the tense Spahn Ranch sequence, the ‘Pumpkin-Puss’ exchange, Bruce Lee fight, Pitt pulverising those fucking hippies. It had those darker elements I like (and that appeal to me in There Will Be Blood and Phantom Thread).

LP breezes along nicely but doesn’t have any moments that really got me in the gut (possibly apart from the very ending, there was something unique about that ‘I love you’ after all we’d seen).